Last week to avoid the VAT increase. If the government does not intervene in the next few days, the third tax rate will increase by one point starting from July XNUMXst. Among the hypotheses to avoid the automatic heavy tax, the most accredited at the moment is a three-month postponement, which would cost one billion but would allow the government to gain time to find the necessary coverage for the complete sterilization of the increase.
The postponement would also ease political tensions, given that last week the secretary of the PDL – Angelino Alfano – once again questioned the stability of the executive in the event of bankruptcy on the VAT dossier.
“I think a postponement is inevitable – said the Deputy Minister of the Economy, Stefano Fassina, in an interview with La Stampa yesterday -. The most probable path is that of a postponement to arrive at the cancellation in the autumn through the stability law ".
It seems that Treasury technicians have managed to find the billion to finance the postponement to October. However, it will be difficult to find space for further interventions: after the postponement of the Imu (with the promise of a review of housing taxes during the summer) and the measures in the pipeline for work, there are few resources to put on the table.
For this reason, the new round of spending reviews has become a priority in Via XX Settembre, which will have to be stricter than the one launched by the Monti government. Given the constraint of 3% of the deficit-GDP ratio, the budget does not offer room for maneuver for 2013, while the prospects for 2014 are still to be defined.
